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All
Saints, Hemblington

You
don't have to go far off of the hellish A47
between Norwich and Yarmouth to come out into an
utterly rural and remote corner of Norfolk. This
is partly sleight of hand, because the narrow
lanes which leave the busy road are so winding
that they make you think you've come further than
you have. Also, you might expect this area
between the marshes and the broads to be flat and
open; but here the landscape rolls, a patchwork
of hedged fields and copses. In the late summer,
there was a balmy restlessness, the soothing
warmth of the sun competing with the wind from
the North Sea ruffling and rustling the long
grass.

All Saints is set in a secretive
graveyard on a rise above a lattice of country
lanes. From a distance it appears a sentinel;
but, closer to, the aspect softens, and the
church reveals itself as a humble little
round-towered building, with much that is old
about it, but also the simple mendings and making
dos of later generations. I was particularly
struck by the use of red brick, both in the
elegant window in the western side of the Norman
tower (is it 17th century?) and the moulding
inside the opening of what is otherwise a humble
south porch.

When I first came this way
I bemoaned the fact that Hemblington church was
kept locked, but I am happy to report that it is
now open every day. Certainly, Hemblington is
a remote parish, and its church a remote church,
and trusting strangers is a risk - and Faith
itself is a risk, of course. But the great
medieval treasures of Hemblington are not the
kind that can be carted away in the back of a
white van.

The first
is one of a number of very interesting, even
idiosyncratic, fonts in this part of Norfolk. These do
not appear to be part of a series, although this one does
bear a strong resemblance to that nearby at Buckenham.
They do suggest, however, that there was an abundance of
stonecarvers working in this area in the 15th century,
and that parishes were able to express their independence
and individuality in their choice of subject. The
Reformation would put a stop to that.

The
Hemblington font was recoloured lightly in the 1930s
under the eye of Professor Tristram. It is a great
celebration of Saints; there are seven seated on the
panels of the bowl, and eight more standing around the
shaft. The eighth panel subject is a beautiful Holy
Trinity, with God the Father seated holding his crucified
Son between his knees, while the dove of the Spirit
descends. It is a charming image; there is another on the
font at Acle a few miles off. Among the Saints on the
panel are St Augustine, St Edward the Confessor, St
Barbara, and a striking St Agatha - she sits with her
breasts bared, a sword descending. Among those around the
shaft are St Lawrence with a finely carved grid iron, St
Leonard with his manacles, St Margaret dispatching a
dragon with her cross, St Catherine with her wheel and
sword, St Stephen and St Mary Magdalene.

If there
was only the font, Hemblington would be a must-see for
anyone interested in the late medieval period. But just
as the font demonstrates the enthusiasms of the cool,
rational 15th century, so there is evidence of the
shadowier devotions of a century earlier. This is the
best single surviving wall painting of the narrative of
St Christopher in England. The giant figure bestrides the
river opposite the south doorway, just as he does in
about twenty churches in this part of Norfolk, but here
his staff has become a club, and on either bank there are
smaller scenes depicting events in the Saint's story.
those on the west side, recalling his life as a pagan
before conversion, are all but obliterated. Those on the
east side, however, are marvellously well-preserved,
vivid and immediate in their clarity. They show the
trials and tribulations he underwent in his life as a
Christian, including the occasion on which two women were
sent to tempt him in prison, and another where he is led
to the executioner's sword. Another shows him tied to a
tree being flogged, an echo of the scourging of Christ;
another shows him being shot through with arrows, which
would have immediately brought to mind the martyrdom of
their own dear St Edmund to the medieval East Anglians.

The donors who paid for the font, in that
great, late medieval attempt to reinforce Catholic
orthodoxy in the face of local abuses and superstitions,
are probably among those remembered by brass inscriptions
in the nave.

And
this must have been a busy parish in those days,
for will evidence reveals that there were three
guild altars where lights burned for the dead. We
can even trace where these guild altars may have
been, for on the north side of the nave there is
a piscina, and connected to it is a pedestal,
where a statue of a Saint would have stood. Such
things were probably destroyed in the 1530s by
orders of the increasingly paranoid King Henry
VIII; those that survived would have fallen to
the orders of the enthusiastically puritan
advisors of his son, the boy King Edward VI a
decade later. It is appalling to think of the
richness that once was, not just here, but in
thousands of village churches all over England.
So much lost, so much wilfully destroyed.

Hemblington
has retained more than most, and the church is a
fascinating testimony to the mindset of late
medieval East Anglia. But even without these
great treasures, All Saints is a charming, rural
building that speaks as loudly of the Victorian
villagers who paid for, and probably worked on,
its restoration as it does of their mysterious
Catholic forebears. I stood for a moment
imagining the blacksmith and the plowboy, the
wheelwright and the carpenter, sitting in the
pews for Divine Service. And then, after a chat
with the modern custodians, we headed on for
North Burlingham.